An Atom in the Universe

An Atom in the Universe

Here you are, a human being, a grand Universe of atoms that have organized themselves into simple monomers, assembled together into giant macromolecules, which in turn comprise the organelles that make up your cells. And here you are, a collection of around 75 trillion specialized cells, organized in such a way as to make up you.

But at your core, you are still just atoms. A mind-bogglingly large number of atoms — some 1028 of them — but atoms nonetheless.

Those two things — you and an atom — may seem so different in scale and size that it’s hard to wrap your head around. Here’s a fun way to think about atoms: if you broke down a human being into all the atoms that make you up, there are about as many atoms that make up you (~1028) as there are “a-human’s-worth-of-atoms” to make up the entire Solar System!